AVALON ON WEDNESDAY - That's what we've got on the books but we might want to move it to Monday, February 21, for a couple of personal reasons. The downside of Monday is that because it's Presidents Day, we would have to come back on a 7:45PM boat (but could possibly go over on a 10AM boat). If you're interested in either date, let me know and we'll see what's what. And speaking of Avalon . . .
COUNTDOWN TO THE CLEANUP - February 26 is the event date. Be aware that on-line registration closes end-of-day Thursday. (You can register day-of but it goes up another $10.) The 6AM boat out of Long Beach is full but they added a 7AM to accommodate the overflow. It looks like this is going to be a record-setting crowd this year so don't get left behind.
NEED ONE OR TWO MORE NON-DIVING CLEANUP VOLUNTEERS - It appears I'm co-ordinating the diving supervision at the Green Pier this year, one aspect of which is tracking divers as they exit the water at the end of the dive so we can be sure everyone is out safely. This involves being on the beach with a clipboard and roster. You don't need to be a Divemaster (or even certified) to help with this. And it doesn't eat up a lot of your day. Basically 9:30 until around 11:30. But you can't do this AND dive so you have to be a non-diving participant. If you're interested in helping out with this specific part of the Cleanup, contact me directly through this e-mail or call me at 310/652-4990.
DR. BILL'S LEGACY - We'll certainly talk about and acknowledge Dr. Bill at the Cleanup and there's another effort going on which you might want to help with. Some people floated the idea of renaming the Avalon Underwater Park for Bill but the local politics in Avalon may make that impractical. However, we're working on a slightly different idea which is to get the CA Fish & Game Commission to rename the MPA in Dr. Bill's honor. That would be water area since the City controls the land portion of the Park but their jurisdiction ends at the waterline. To that end, the application to F&G allows for supporting documentation which, in this case, can include letters of support from the diving community. If you would like to submit a short note - a paragraph or two - in support of this effort, we've set up a special e-mail account for that:
DrBillMPA@aol.com. Our hope is to then assemble all of the responses and submit them with our application. Because this is a slow-moving process overall and our hope is to have this approved by June, if you intend to submit a response, we'd like to have those no later than March 1 (which is a little over two weeks away).
RECOMMENDED VIEWING - Wednesday night at 8PM on PBS (KOCE in the L.A. area) is a new episode of Nature called "The Ocean's Greatest Feast" and it's all about sardines. If there's such a thing as reincarnation, I certainly hope I don't come back as a sardine.
SHARKS AND THE FULL MOON - Uh-oh. There's new research from LSU and the University of Florida that suggest phases of the moon may have an effect on the frequency of sharks attacks, with more happening during a full moon. You can read about it here:
SHARK ATTACKS AND THE MOON. (BTW, the next full moon is this Wednesday.)
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
